State Sen. Dan Swecker of Rochester had a short day in the Legislature on Saturday after suffering an apparent migraine headache attack that left him disoriented. ... A migraine disoriented him? What's the excuse for the other Repugs?

TL commented: Sounds like the result of reading too many Republican policies.

Glenn commented: TL - That wouldn't be too many Republican policies now would it? ...

Of course, Glenn had to spoil his supposed insight by adding that he thinks that was because Democrats have had the Legislature locked up. [snort]

I find this article very disturbing. On the one hand the writer states multiple times that Hyer is innocent until proven guilty but then turns around and says multiple times that Hyer needs to resign because [h]e now stands accused of breaking those laws that he swore to uphold. I guess around here appearances override the presumption of innocence that is supposed to be of utmost importance until charges are proven in a court of law.

I do understand that he admitted to the arresting officers that he had sold pot, but legally he still has to be considered to be innocent until he actually appears in court and pleads guilty or is convicted. The Olympian's article, however, has him convicted and sentenced without any days in court!

Infamous words coming from Senator Can'ter, the minority whip when speaking at the Health Care Summit on Thursday.The way he was talking, you'd think it about some folks not having a flat screen TV on their wall, or a shiny BMW in their garage. No Senator, we're talking about a quality of life as free from untreated illness as possible. And what that means is having THE ABILITY TO GET PROPER MEDICAL CARE.Have we, as a nation, sunk to the level of depravity that some think that only a portion of our population is somehow entitled to proper medical care, and fuck the rest. I just don't get it!And why is our President trying so hard to appease the Republican minority whilst leaving his majority to pray that this gutless senate bill might get passed with a Public Option voted in under reconciliation. Health care reform is change I want to believe in, but at the end of the day, with out a strong public option what kind of change will we be getting?

Please my progressive minded friends, please talk me down on this one, cause Ive been really pissed for a few days now.

Friday, February 26, 2010

"Sondra They know there are a lot of idiots out there. Hell just look at Larry(butt boy) Hill. The arugula growing season is kind of been over for a while it is a little chilly and the shit does not freeze well. Or maybe she has been keeping iwarm and fresh between the cheeks of her ass. Or worse growing it out of her ass. Well at least it will be organic.comment by Jack on 11/29 at 05:31 AM"

Question is......was Jack up early and hadn't had his coffee yet, or was this at 5:30 AM and still drunk from the night before????

Be careful, Larry the Fairy. You can’t get all your homo friends together and have people banned here.Now go and get in a big slimy pile with all your butt buddies and rump rangers.comment by JoeBandMember on 11/28 at 09:02 AM

(FYI) This was IV's response to the ficticious "Larry Hill"......

I'm sure IV followed this up with a rousing chorus of "Yes, Jesus Loves Me...."Here's a post from IV, yesterday in the Daily O -

Comment on: Letters to the Editor for Feb. 25 at 2/25/2010 8:30 PM PST on The OlympianGood letter, Mike. Those who preach "tolerance and diversity" are the ones who want most to control your every thought. They are the ones who have to "get" you because you simply disagree. They are the ones who make websites and "identities" specifically to harass and intimidate.

Go to the link and read the conversation about me on 11/28. I tripped on this doing a search for my website, to see how it was linked.

SondraK, Joe the BM and the other assorted puppets were punked by someone using my name and then they posted a website - http://www.larry-hill.com/ which is not mine (picking myself up off the ground from laughing so hard).

I'm not sure which is funnier - the punkster who did them in or Joe the BM saying I have homosexual tendencies (Joe must have mistaken me for someone else when he was doing Men's Bathroom Patrol)

I thought one poster got it right and I got a free review on Sondra's website - I believe the term was "not bad".....LMAO. One problem.....wrong Larry Hill....ROFLMAO.

Now "Mitch" found my website and copied my picture and called it my CD cover. Wrong, Mitchie! I have four CDs available and not one of them uses that picture. You fuckers are so stupid you couldn't find your asses with toilet paper......LOLOLOLOL

Joe the BM was absolutely fixated with my sexual orientation. I wonder if my wife want's to know......

Thursday, February 25, 2010

Conservative media personality Bill O'Reilly said this morning he has no intention to run for president because he has more power as a host on Fox News.

"I have more power doing what I'm doing than getting involved in the political process," O'Reilly said on ABC's "Good Morning America."

Host George Stephanopoulos likened O'Reilly's tone to the 1992 independent presidential candidate Ross Perot, but O'Reilly said he doesn't have the money that billionaire Perot had.

"You need $150 million to run for president," he said. "Unless the Chinese are going to back me, and I don't know if that's a good thing, what am I supposed to do?"

As for former GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, also a Fox contributor, O'Reilly said, "she wants to run, but it's a matter of, as I said, does she want to put her family through that hell, does she want to raise the money."

He acknowledged that Palin is not as well-versed on political affairs as she should be, but he said other politicians should not be aggrandized for their knowledge.

At today's summit, numerous legislators have used examples of health care problems unique, or mostly unique, to women as examples of problems that need to be solved -- getting coverage for breast cancer, letting insurance companies versus doctors decide for how long a woman may stay at the hospital after giving birth, or ensuring that women do not have to pay more for insurance than men.

Looking around the table today, however, women are vastly underrepresented. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is heading up the congressional delegation. She is joined by Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), as well as Reps. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is at the meeting as well.

The Republicans simply don’t want to pass comprehensive health-care reform. That is the main lesson of today’s health-care summit. It started, as Steve Stromberg pointed out earlier, with the Republicans wanting to talk more about process than about the content of the various health-care bills. It approached an end with House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) delivering the core Republican message: “Scrap this bill.”

As I argued in a post I put up before the summit began, this discussion would be successful if it simply revealed the stark philosophical differences between the parties. That’s exactly what it’s done. Now it is absolutely clear that the only way health-care reform will pass is through majority rule in the Senate, otherwise known as the “reconciliation process.” Democrats will have to have the guts to do it on their own. Republicans wanted to talk about process or tried to poke holes in President Obama’s proposals. They sought not to emphasize their own ideas because their own bills are so much smaller and do so much less.

"... I’m tired of hearing so many legislative Republicans who have never had private-sector jobs bash the public sector. I would like to see them put their money where their mouths are. ... I had offered an amendment to the furloughs’ legislation that would reduce the $90 per day compensation paid to Legislators during the legislative session by an amount equivalent to the reduction in compensation for the average legislative worker under furloughs. It’s curious that furlough-loving Republicans don’t like that idea."

It always seems to boil down to money, doesn't it? I hate to have to tell Mrs. Hunter, but money won't bring Mr. Hunter back, unfortunately.

Say Mrs. Stack did think of warning someone.... who should she have approached? And would it have done any good, or would she have been viewed as someone wearing a tin-foil hat?

I think it could be hard to prove that Mrs. Stack was aware of just how angry and dangerous her husband was. Look how many news reports we see where relatives and associates tell the world in the wake of a tragedy that they had no idea that the perpetrator of said tragedy "would do something like that."

... the academy would like to see foods such as hot dogs "redesigned" so their size, shape and texture make them less likely to lodge in a youngster's throat. ... Riley questions whether warning labels are needed. She notes that more than half of hot dogs sold in stores already have choking-prevention tips on their packages, advising parents to cut them into small pieces. "As a mother who has fed toddlers cylindrical foods like grapes, bananas, hot dogs and carrots, I 'redesigned' them in my kitchen by cutting them with a paring knife until my children were old enough to manage on their own," Riley says.

Are we to assume that all parents are thought to be too dumb to think of doing their own "redesigning" of hot dogs? Sheesh, we might as well just nuke the human race out of existence!

Author's note - in media "fill" is the wire crap that they throw in at the last minute to take up space or time. Following up on Psycho's dissertation on "Palin Derangement Syndrome", my new feature - "Dear Dr. Fill:"

(Feel free to submit questions)

Dear Dr. Fill:I notice that everytime anyone brings up Sarah Palin, this dipshit in our online newspaper forum starts talking about PDS. Is this really "Palin Derangement Syndrome" or "Pretty Damned Stupid"? - WonderingDear Wondering:Are these the same people that are talking about one blow job that Bill Clinton got in the 1990s? - Dr. Fill

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Once again the predators are flagging comments and getting them deleted. Must give them a huge rush to do that...... I wish the Olympian mods wouldn't give them that opportunity, though. They need to be more careful about choosing which comments to delete. If it's an abusive comment, then by all means it should be deleted, but expressions of opinion should NOT be deleted!

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Fear the blobfish... With all their boneless goo and slime and passive/aggressive floating, blobfish feeding behavior is remarkably similar to that of a subspecies of far more advanced creatures: American politicians. ...

Some of you are so eager to get somebody else's comments deleted that you give the rest of us no opportunity to read them and judge their content for ourselves. I have only your subsequent comments to "prove" that a comment was "racist". In addition, you don't bother to accurately quote the deleted comments, so your own comments aren't trustworthy either. (Maybe we ought to make sure your comments are deleted too??)

Sunday, February 14, 2010

... I believe a Palin candidacy would force upon this country a desperately needed moment of truth. It would require us to finally decide what kind of America we want to be. Mrs. Palin, you are an avatar of the shameless hypocrisy and cognitive disconnection that have driven our politics for the last decade, a process of stupidification creeping like kudzu over our national life. ...

... something is wrong when we celebrate mental mediocrity like yours under the misapprehension that competence or, God forbid, “intelligence,” makes a person one of those “elites” – that’s a curse word now – lacking authenticity, compassion and common sense.

So no, this is not a clash of ideologies, but a clash between intelligence and its opposite. And I am tired of being asked to pretend stupid is a virtue. That’s why I’d welcome the moment of truth your campaign would bring.

It would force us to decide once and for all whether we are permanently committed to the path of ignorance, of birthers, truthers and tea party incoherence you represent, or whether we will at last turn back from the cliff toward which we race. ...

Friday, February 12, 2010

An Arab ambassador escaped married life by a whisker.The diplomat had his marriage instantly annulled after he tried to kiss his veiled bride and discovered she had a beard and was cross-eyed.The unnamed groom had never seen the woman's face because she wore a niqab throughout their entire courtship, according to reports.He freaked out after they signed the marriage contract in Dubai, canceled the reception and went right to an Islamic Sharia court.He demanded the union be annulled, that $137,000 he'd spent on wedding gifts and expenses be returned, and the bride be examined for "hormonal deficiencies.""He was absolutely horrified," said a wedding guest, according to London's Daily Mail."The bride had a nice personality, but there was a good reason why she was hiding her looks behind a veil."A divorce was inevitable, and the groom went straight to court, leaving his new bride in floods of tears."The ambassador alleged that that his would-be mother-in-law had shown him pictures of his intended's sister to trick him into marrying the homelier woman."Every time the couple met, the bride would do her best not to reveal her entire face," a source close to the case told the local Gulf News this week.The court granted the annulment but did not approve compensation.A doctor who examined the jilted bride, who is also a doctor, did not find any medical reason for her facial hair.The report did not identify the ambassador nor give any further details.

WASHINGTON – Republican groups are raising money under the guise of the U.S. Census Bureau, leaving the government's people-counters worried that a flurry of misleading letters could make some Americans less likely to respond to the real thing.

After the Republican National Committee raised money with such mailings, congressional Republicans are now conducting a fundraising "census" of their own.

House Minority Leader John Boehner writes in a new mailing that people were specially chosen to receive "the enclosed CENSUS DOCUMENT containing your 2010 Census of America's Republican Leadership."

Like other solicitations in recent months, Boehner's seeks to capitalize on the name of the Census Bureau, which mails official forms to the nation in mid-March.

The Census Bureau is worried the flurry of misleading letters could deter participation, and Democrats are pushing legislation to stop it. ...[snip]

Beck, who is influential among the Libertarian-leaning voters that Medina has attracted, said he had been flooded with mail since he announced she would be on the show. Medina said in the interview that she has not been questioning the attacks publicly."There was a theme that ran against you, and that is, you are a '9/11 Truther,'" Beck said, referring to the term given to people who doubt the official account of Sept. 11."While I don't endorse anyone ... I think I can write her off the list," Beck said. "Let me take another look at Kay Bailey Hutchison if I have to. Rick, I think you and I could French kiss right now."======================

There you have it..Glenn Beck wants to French Kiss Texas Governor Rick Perry..

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Editor's note:Roland S. Martin, a CNN political analyst, is a nationally syndicated columnist and author of "Listening to the Spirit Within: 50 Perspectives on Faith," and the forthcoming book "The First: President Barack Obama's Road to the White House." He is a commentator for TV One Cable Network and host of a one-hour Sunday morning news show.

(CNN) -- Sarah Palin's most ardent supporters in "real America" love to suggest that those of us who don't buy into her shtick fail to grasp why they love her, citing her realness, plain-spokenness and whatever else they can conjure up.

Folks, nice try, but as a native Texan, I've seen many politicians and wannabes over the years who had charm, wit, charisma and a twinkle in their eye.

[snip]

Why haven't I cottoned to Palin? Because she portrays herself as a straight-talking politician who wants to lead a movement in the "Lower 48th" -- but is nothing more than a political celebrity willing to cash every check she can grab.

What truly exposed her for me? It was the ridiculous way she reacted in opposing ways last week to two political heavyweights who used the word "retard."

[snip]

Sarah, when you hold yourself up as a fierce protector of the mentally challenged, politics shouldn't enter into the equation. Either you criticize everyone who uses a word that you consider a slur, or you come across as a crass politician who is afraid to offend your chief booster.

[snip]

Sarah, I haven't bought into your fake "I'm-a-real-American" persona. You slam the president for using teleprompters, but write crib notes on your hand to remember basic beliefs that should be easy to regurgitate.

You decry the "lamestream" media, but you bask in its glory and have joined its payroll as a Fox News contributor, even having the network build a studio in your home. Talk about media elite.

You give a speech riddled with falsehoods about the president and national security, and then try to shrug them off as the "lamestream" media attacking you.

You don't fool me, even as your legion of fans considers you the second coming of President Reagan. You quit on the people who elected you to become a political celebrity, which your presidential running mate blasted then-Sen. Barack Obama for doing.

You had the opportunity to show everyone that you're willing to take on anyone who crosses the line against those who are mentally challenged, and you failed.

Please, make as much money as you can. Paraphrasing comedian Martin Lawrence, ride this train until the wheels fall off. But please, cut the crap. You're a crass politician with no true conviction. Your actions have shown that.

WASHINGTON – The snows that obliterated Washington last week interfered with many scheduled meetings, but they did not prevent the delivery of one important political message: Take Sarah Palin seriously.

Her lengthy Saturday night keynote address to the National Tea Party Convention in Nashville and her debut on the Sunday morning talk show circuit with Fox News’ Chris Wallace showed off a public figure at the top of her game — a politician who knows who she is and how to sell herself.

[snip]

Freed of the responsibilities she carried as governor of Alaska, devoid of any official title but armed with regular gigs on Fox News Channel and more speaking invitations than she can fulfill, Palin is perhaps the most visible Republican in the land.

More important, she has locked herself firmly in the populist embrace that every skillful outsider candidate from George Wallace to Jimmy Carter to Ronald Reagan to Bill Clinton has utilized when running against “the political establishment.”

[snip]

“I want to speak up for the American people and say: No, we really do have some good common-sense solutions. I can be a messenger for that. Don’t have to have a title to do it.”

This is a pitch-perfect recital of the populist message that has worked in campaigns past. There are times when the American people are looking for something more: for an Eisenhower, who liberated Europe; an FDR or a Kennedy or a Bush, all unashamed aristocrats; or an Obama, with eloquence and brains.

But in the present mood of the country, Palin is by all odds a threat to the more uptight Republican aspirants such as Mitt Romney and Tim Pawlenty — and potentially, to Obama as well.

Palin did not wear well in the last campaign, especially in the suburbs where populism has a limited appeal. But when Wallace asked her about resigning the governorship with 17 months left in her term and whether she let her opponents drive her from office, she said, “Hell, no.”

Those who want to stop her will need more ammunition than deriding her habit of writing on her hand. The lady is good.

Washington Post political columnist David Broder can be contacted at davidbroder@washpost.com.

Another blog I read occasionally is "Views from a hill", written by Mark Bittner, the guy behind the book and movie about the Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill in San Francisco (I recommend both the book and the movie). Friends and I had dinner with him when he visited Olympia 5 years ago, and he was a very interesting dinner companion.

Some of his latest posts:

The Republican Party’s Idea of Freedom."Stephen Gaskin once said something along the lines of, “When the Republicans talk about freedom, they’re talking about the freedom to loot the ship.” He said that shortly after Reagan became president, and it stayed in my mind. I return to it over and over as I see, nearly thirty years later, and after a tremendous amount of damage being done, just how accurate that description was."

The Nature of Evil."... One thing that I know is evil is egotism. Yet a lot of people nowadays see egotism as a virtue. Ayn Rand considered it such. The Reagan Revolution was founded on the idea that selfishness and greed are virtues. ..."

The Tea Party."... I know I’ve said much of this before, but I’m bringing it up again because of the Tea Party convention in Nashville. I had an exchange with one of them recently, and I realized that they’re not really bad people. But they do live in a delusion—the Reagan fantasy—and they don’t spend much time being thoughtful. This guy had quite a few hatreds, and he was willing to give up most of them when pressed. But he demanded simple answers. The Tea Party wants the old America back, the America of a constantly increasing standard of living. They seem to see money as the only real pleasure in life. They’re going to be getting angrier and angrier as time goes on because no matter what happens in the future, no matter which political party is in charge, that dream is over."

A recently released study from the University of Minnesota finds that people who drink as few as two soft drinks a week face almost double the risk of pancreatic cancer, one of the deadliest forms of the disease, according to a report by CBS station WCCO-TV.The study, which examined data from 60,000 people in Singapore over 14 years, found that regular soft drink consumers were 87 percent more likely to develop pancreatic cancer, even after accounting for factors like age, obesity, diabetes and cigarette smoking. The study only applies to consumption of regular soda, not diet soft drinks or fruit juices.

The article says "two soft drinks a week" but I think they must have meant a day, right? This reminds me of the experiment everybody does in school with the nail dissolving in the soda. I drink alot of water to avoid passing a stone but I do love a Coke from time to time. Everything in moderation. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/02/09/health/main6189455.shtml

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Even the White House's top spokesman is getting in on the act of mocking former Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin for looking to talking points written on her palm during a speech to "tea party" activists.

Robert Gibbs showed the words "hope" and "change" on his hand as he started his daily briefing with reporters on Tuesday.

Many in the room, where President Barack Obama had spoken just moments before about the need for bipartisanship, groaned at the political shot.

Palin spoke Saturday in Nashville and photographs and video show she had "energy," "tax" and "lift American spirits" on her hand. During one question, she looked down at the palm of her hand for a cue.

The politically motivated selective-victimhood of Sarah Palin "... Far from consistent, Palin has exposed herself as someone who deploys selective-victimhood as a politically motivated weapon. How else can one explain her harsh rebuke of Emanuel and near silence when it comes to eerily similar language used by conservative radio talker Rush Limbaugh and her Fox News colleague Glenn Beck? ... "

Monday, February 8, 2010

Can anybody tell me what the difference is between using a teleprompter or using notes written on one's hand?

Analysis: Sarah Palin Needs More Than a Hand "President Obama prefers the teleprompter. Sarah Palin uses her analog Palm Pilot, scribbling in ink on her palms. ... American politics follows Newton's laws of motion: For every action there is a reaction. Palin disparages Mr. Obama's reliance on the telepromter [sic] and then receives her comeuppance for her hand-held notes, as if she were cheating on a civics test. ..."

Sarah Palin's palm cheat-sheet steals her show "... It quickly became apparent that Palin had been glancing at notes written on her palm. The Huffington Post produced a photographic close-up, which showed her hand contained the words "Energy", "Tax" and "Lift American Spirits." The phrase "Budget cuts" was also there, though the word "Budget" had been crossed out. ..."

Just in case the Right Winger's sneak in when the gates are open, I wanted a headline that would turn them on.

Now, to the story -

February 8th, 2010 - 10:24 pm ICT by Aishwarya Bhatt -

Nashville, Feb 8 (THAINDIAN NEWS) Sarah Palin tried to mock the US President Barack Obama, but in the process, also embarrassed herself. Sarah Palin was speaking at the National Tea Party convention, and she spoke on various topics, and took several digs at the US President Barack Obama’s reliance on the teleprompter. However she embarrassed herself no end, as she herself was referring to notes that she had written on her hand.

Some witnesses said that Sarah Palin poked ample fun at President Barack Obama’s teleprompter dependency, while depending on her own ‘palm pilot’. “This is about the people, and it’s bigger than any one king or queen of a Tea Party, and it’s a lot bigger than any charismatic guy with a teleprompter,” she said.

She also poked fun at Barack Obama’s message of hope. “How’s that hopey-changey thing working out for you?” she asked. “To win that war, we need a commander in chief, not a professor of law,” she said.

If you can stand to watch the video (45 minutes worth) you'll note that you get a nice view of the top of Palin's head about every 15 seconds as she looks at her notes. Someone needs to tell her that it's OK to read a speech, but teleprompters will actually make it look like you aren't working off 3x5 cards in your high school speech class.

They say she answered questions. I wonder if anyone asked how you build two two-story cabins, 100 miles in the wilderness, without trucking access from July to January, when they have probably been snowed in since about October.

Maybe someone asked if Todd will really run the show when she takes over the White House or it she'd quit mid-term to become the star of the next TV reality show.

It had been a while since we had seen Sarah Palin live and in person. And then she popped onto stage Saturday night at the National Tea Party convention in Nashville, and we made these observations:1) She's lost a lot of weight, perhaps 15 pounds. She looked trim and firm, like she's hoisting the barbells or maybe chopping wood. Her chair at the head table was empty; if she had the shrimp and filet mignon served to attendees, she ate in her hotel room.2) She wore a fitted black suit, black hose and high black platform heels. She had on three opera-length strands of pearls, two white and one multi-colored. In her lapel, a small pin with two flags -- for Israel and the United States.3) She was animated and full of energy, so much so that she kept knocking her microphone with her hand as she made her points. Hope the Texans are ready for her when she campaigns Sunday for Gov. Rick Perry. She certainly looks like a woman who has some plans.

Behind Palin: Fox News & Bush’s “Brains” Are Hiding In Plain Sight"... Let’s be perfectly clear here; Sarah Palin is nothing but a sexy facade in charge of recycling the message of the former administration. The so called “tea party grass root movement” has been manufactured all along by Fox News. For some reason they managed to derail the Obama administration health care reform by pretending that the “grass root” movement in question was a lot bigger than it actually is. But then one has to wonder who is really running the political agenda of Fox News. Is it the clowns such as Glen Beck, Bill O’ Reilly etc, or the real guys, the ones that are called in to do the heavy ideological lifting. I am sure you know exactly who they are: It is former VP Dick Cheney and Bush’s “brain” himself AKA Karl Rove. The former Bush administration did not completely leave the political arena, they just moved to Fox News. ...

The Washington State Department (WSDOT) will unleash its freeway speed cameras in the southwest portion of the state on Monday, September 15. WSDOT officials held a kickoff event in Chehalis on Friday to announce the date that ticketing will begin. The cameras will first appear in white Ford SUVs parked on the side of the road in a work zone on Interstate 5 south of Chehalis."Along with our Washington State Patrol partners, we place a high priority on highway safety," WSDOT State Traffic Engineer Ted Trepanier said. "The automated traffic safety cameras are just part of the highway safety program."This program is designed to generate millions in revenue from $137 citations generated by the fully automated vans. Washington officials neglected to mention that ATS, an Arizona-based vendor, is the primary partner in charge of all aspects of the ticketing process in exchange for a significant portion of the revenue.Washington officials also declined to disclose the speed at which cameras will trigger a violation notice. Instead, this will change over time to generate the precise number of citations desired, depending on the locations where the cameras operate. The WSDOT program may face significant political opposition if it continues to operate after voters adopt Initiative 985 (view detail in November. The measure will force cities operating local photo radar programs to turn over all revenue to a congestion relief fund -- preventing municipalities from using the program as a source of revenue. Five cities have already dropped photo ticketing plans as a result.Illinois was the first state to begin operating speed cameras on a statewide basis, followed by Arizona. Over the past five years, fatal collisions in Washington work zones have declined 41 percent without any photo enforcement.

I really want to encourage participation on ThurstonBlog, but we have to keep it members only because of continual abuse by "TooHotAchmed, et al".

The way we can do this is to register everyone as an author, but I'll need their email address to do so. So, here is my plan -

If you know someone that would enjoy and not abuse ThurstonBlog, get their permission and send me their email address and I will send them the electronic invite that all of you got. They will then be registered to post, comment and read.

Feast on the Dada theater that is the Tea Party nee Teabagger movement.

This gem from Politico's coverage of the Tea Party Express national convention:

Yet, Chuck Smith, a 66-year-old convention-goer from the Knoxville area, said "it may be too early for the movement to have a leader. I think Sarah Palin is more of a symbol of a grass-roots, everyday, hard-working American fighting back against Big Government."Sarah as a symbol for the American hoi poli.

Rich.

And just a paragraph down:

"I see her as possibly becoming the media face of the movement, kind of like Al Sharpton is the official black guy," said Mark Williams, an official with the group.

Sarah Palin: The Al Sharpton of the Jacobin Right.

Priceless.

And finally:

We proved that this movement is more than just standing and yelling at big buildings; and we are just getting started.Michigan Tea Party spokemodel commenting on a rally held around June 14th, 2009

Yell at buildings. Not all buildings mind you. That would be crazy. Just the big ones.

The convoluted method of teaching math, that leaves kids unable to even count change, is reason enough to vote against the dumbing down of our kids and grandkids.

This from our favorite RepugnaBot's response to a LTE advocating for the North Thurston Levy. Beyond the obvious logic that less school, not more, actually dumbs children down, the irony was too rich to ignore.

Friday, February 5, 2010

John Kangas is a long time Olympian who, to paraphrase Hunter S. Thompson, has spent most of his adult life in a profoundly active balance of Terror with local law enforcement. In the pages of Kangas Repoor John un-apologetically tells his (mis)adventures in salvaging bits and pieces of our disappearing architectural and nautical history lovingly built by craftsmen from bygone days. In today's environmentally sensitive Olympia it is possible to argue John is an eco-warrior hard at work reducing our carbon footprint by de-constructing and re-purposing: Then, and quite possibly to this day, the cops and courts think of him as an incorrigible scofflaw. The Man is right.

The Kangas Repoor is a smart, funny, honest and subtlety spiritual memoirs of a true Olympia Iconoclast. A must read.

The e-mails that were released open a curtain on the behind-the-scenes preoccupations of the Palins, particularly the flash points of family and the media, personal finances and state finances.

The governor coached her staff on how to disguise the amount of electrical work needed at the mansion to hook up her new tanning bed.

Palin and her staff stewed over the refusal of the state Public Safety Department to provide a plane so the children could fly to Todd's family's home in Dillingham; after all, they were going to attend a bill signing, so the travel requests could be justified. Sarah Palin called the decision "outrageous," and an aide said it provides "a great excuse to privatize" the governor's jet service.The manager of the Palins' travel schedule searched for a public event to use as justification ("I just need one") to charge the state for an airplane flight for Palin's daughter, Willow, who made the trip but had missed the event given as its justification.

When Sarah Palin complained that the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner wrote a critical editorial after she did them the favor of meeting with the editorial board, Todd Palin advised the press chief to "take the news miner off the press release address list for a few days, see how long it takes them to realize their not on the list."

"Man, that gossip crap bugs me," Sarah Palin wrote after the Anchorage Daily News wrote about mansion repairs in its Alaska Ear political column. "Any time it has anything to do with home or family, it's irritating." A press aide apologized, saying the columnist did not to call check out stories before publishing. The residence director added, "Reminds me of junior high school, where hormonal teenagers are always looking for the drama. ... I'll do my best to avoid giving them any news nuggets."

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Mac_Wade wrote on 02/04/2010 09:05:23 PM:Yanno what, come to think about it, she should apply for a position in the Obama administration. That's where all the tax cheats goIs Mac in drag as Sondra or vice versa? Then, of course, there is the Mac/Achmed/TooHot combo plate that is a taco short.

Records show that Sarah Palin hasn't paid any property taxes on cabins that have been built on two backcountry plots partially owned by the former Alaska governor.

There are no tax assessments for the two-story, house-sized cabins, a workshop and a sauna spotted Thursday in an aerial survey. Property taxes totaling $156.13 were paid on the land in 2009 -- but that bill did not include anything for the structures because the local assessor didn't know about the new construction nearly 100 miles north of Anchorage.

The issue has attracted the attention of local tax officials who conducted the scheduled aerial survey of properties in the area on Thursday. The area is accessible only by floatplane, snowmobile or four-wheeler.

Dave Dunivan, the assessor for the Matanuska-Susitna Borough, said such a survey had not been done there in five years, before construction started on the cabins.Palin's attorney, Thomas Van Flein, said it is not the responsibility of property owners to report structures that go up on their land."It is the borough's job," he said in an e-mail. "The property taxes on this parcel are fully paid and have never been delinquent."

Dunivan, however, said owners are required by state law to report any omissions or errors in their tax assessments. Often, the borough learns of new structures in remote areas when neighbors report them. Dunivan said no one has called the borough on the Palin lots, among many in the region to add structures, the flyover survey found.

But she's a real American and knows what Americans want.

Here's my question. Since she needed money, so she quit her state job to whore her book, how could she have afforded this little getaway with A SAUNA?????

Too_Opinionated wrote on 02/04/2010 11:09:37 AM ... Whatever happened to the openess promised by the Democrats? Everything is closed door, members only, you even have to be a member to be a cricket these days!

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IndependentVoter wrote on 02/03/2010 09:33:03 PM:Those new identities must not be working out so well as we all expected. I notice they keep getting replaced.Just another day with the angry, but tolerant and diverse, left.

Monday, February 1, 2010

GoIdfinger wrote on 02/01/2010 08:18:56 PM:Gimmie a break rusty... TB'ers? sounds like a respiratory disorder.The Welcome MatIndependentVoter wrote on 02/01/2010 06:00:57 PM:Larry sure gets a lot of mileage out of these new identities.Hey Felcher, I have a great idea. Post on ThurstonBlog, where The Olympian doesn't get pissy with you and then you have a hissy fit about your "freedom of speech".Tell us who all my new identities are. I'd love to know and I'm sure the rest of the ThurstonBloggers would get a chuckle or two.Of course, you could be a coward and afraid to not hide behind The Olympian's Terms of Service that you love to whine about.What do you think TBers???? Want an open forum with Indy Felcher where he can't hide behind The Olympian's skirt?LOLFirst of all, she hijacked that name from someone about two weeks (maybe three) ago. The original "Goldfinger" was a reasonable commenter. Now she's using it to intimate that I am "rusty nails".....which I'm not.

She probably got pissed off when The Olympian closed her "Joan Hill" personna this morning. I wonder how she'll react to GoIdfinger getting the boot tomorrow?